


First Snow

by mantisbelle



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canon Universe, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Shared Trauma, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 17:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle
Summary: As it turns out, Iris has bitterly cold winters.





	1. Snowfall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a friend using prompts from Bad Things Happen Bingo.

Ever since the incident with Temple and the Blues and Reds, there are certain things that continue to creep back up into the edges of Wash’s consciousness and leave him shaken and unsteady— A normal side effect of torture, Dr. Grey assures him repeatedly.

Sometimes, it’s because he’s gotten himself into a room that’s far too small and cramped. Sometimes, he's been too hungry for too long and all he can think of is being in that room again. Sometimes, it’s because he watches the Reds and Blues for too long.

The truth is that he’s surrounded by idiots, and it’s only a matter of time before the Reds and Blues end up sucked into some weird scheme, or a war, or someone’s personal nonsense that had gotten out of hand. The Reds and Blues are incapable of avoiding trouble. They’re a magnet for trouble. In their lives, he can’t remember a time where they’d actually gone looking for it aside from the adventure to track down the Director, and that had been more Carolina’s drive than anything else that had led them.

Carolina.

Sometimes, it all comes back to her. The tenuous connection to Project Freelancer that links them sometimes feels like it’s the only thing that links them, even though Wash knows it isn’t true. Sometimes he’s just too aware of how close the two of them had gotten to losing each other, and how many times it had happened.

One day, Wash knew their luck would run out. He just didn’t know when. He had no delusions that there would be an if it happened.

Either way, he knew he was too aware of it. Deep down, he knew Carolina was probably the same way as he was.

Carolina creeps into his nightmares regardless, sometimes in images that he only knows of, things that he hadn’t gotten to witness.

He imagines Carolina, dangling off of a snowy cliff with her red hair slick with blood that just blends in with her locks, two AI just torn from her head by a man they both once considered a friend— a man once considered Agent Maine of Project Freelancer. Her blood, vibrant and alive against the snow. Her blood, vibrant and alive against the white of the Meta’s armor.

The fact that he was in a hospital bed when it had happened didn’t matter. It always rushed into his memory anyways. He only knows what the people around him would whisper when they thought he wasn’t listening.

He imagines Carolina, locked up in her armor and struggling to get free from it even though she’s locked in place. When that memory comes, he can’t help but remember that just hours before the two of them had been on a sunny beach ready to open drinks and enjoy the few scraps of downtime that they had together.

He imagines Carolina, with one of Felix’s knives sticking out of her leg, and then the wound reopening several times over a course of a few weeks because there wasn’t the time to heal on Chorus. Any one slip up gone too far, and she would have been killed.

He imagines Carolina in the snow again, but instead of bleeding due to the AI’s removal, it’s because she's laying there with her body ruined and her armor burned after an encounter with Sharkface.

Too many ways, he’s seen her almost die. Too many ways, he can imagine her dead. He sees the places where it nearly happened too clearly for his own liking.

Always, it’s the snow that he comes back to. It's the one that feels the most important, at the least.

Usually, it’s those images that only bother him when he’s asleep and alone at night. The nights where she's off training late or doing perimeter checks with Grif (something which Wash strongly suspects aren’t actually perimeter checks. Grif wouldn’t be caught dead doing actual work.)

It’s never stretched into his real life. Not into reality. It’s always been horrible fantasy at play.

It’s only when it snows on Iris for the first time that those feelings rear their ugly head in person.

Wash stands on top of Blue Base with a mug of piping hot coffee like he does four mornings a week, nursing it and enjoying the heat as he surveys the valley. It’s a rare morning where the Reds aren’t out running what have been affectionately nicknamed “breakfast drills.” He’s heard too many bad sausage related sex jokes to count because of it.

Tucker, Caboose, and Kai are all still in bed, and he’d made sure to turn up the heat in the base before he’d gone out since it had been a bit colder than he’d been expecting the night before.

He would have wanted for his teammates to do the same, after all.

Carolina, he knew, was off running like she did four mornings a week when she wasn’t on perimeter checks.

Like most mornings, he just makes himself comfortable on one of the lawn chairs on top of the base and just watches. He knows he won’t see anything abnormal— he hasn’t since the Dinosaur-Robot Wars and is honestly happier that way. Normalcy is nice.

Even despite knowing that she was out on a run, the sight of a streak of red and seafoam/aquamarine/teal/light greenish blue against the stark white snow sends him for a horrible, horrible loop.

It churns something in his stomach, and stirs him to go down and prepare another mug of coffee. At least it gets him away from the sight so that he can calm down. He pours the coffee straight from the pot into an aqua blue thermos, and carries out with him to meet Carolina in the clearing.

She notices him just as she rounds the corner behind Red Base and makes a beeline for him. Before she can reach him, Wash holds out the travel mug, which Carolina ends up taking from his hand as she slows to a stop. It’s a maneuver they've had a lot of time to practice. Perfect refueling strategies.

“Black?” She asks him as she slides the small cover on the lid to the side so that she can drink. Her face is slightly red, blood having risen to her cheeks during the run. He can see her breath the same way he sees the steam rise from the coffee.

“Black.” Wash confirms for her, between sips of his own drink. “The local berry blend we got on Chorus last month.”

Carolina smiles and takes the first sip. “Thank you.” She says, apparently satisfied. “What has you up early this morning?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Wash admits. “Figured I’d take in the sights before it gets ruined.” He puts on a smile, like it’s going to be enough to make him forget about what he’d imagined when he’d seen her hair. “I’ve never seen snow here before.”

“I can’t blame you.” Carolina sighs as she takes in the first sip of coffee. “The guys up yet?”

“I think it's just us for now.” Wash murmurs. “Not that I mind.”

She nods towards the base, and Wash follows.

“How was the run this morning?”

“A little tougher than usual.” Carolina admits. “I forgot how it feels to run in the snow. Good thing it’s not that much though, right?”

For a moment, Wash thinks of Sidewinder and it makes his stomach flip. The snow had been deep there, and difficult to trudge through. He’d fought there, sure, but so much of it had been fueled by pure adrenaline that it had faded from his thoughts. After all, staying alive had been more important than anything else in those minutes.

Even still he remembers lying in the snow there, absolutely certain that he was going to die.

Maybe it’s something that he and Carolina had in common. Snow being an omen.

“Yeah.” Wash says in reference to her question. It was good that it was just a powdery layer, instead of something that they’d have to dig themselves out of later. “Want to go back in? It’s warm inside.”

“Yeah.” Carolina laughs. She turns to head back to the base, and Wash decides to follow not too long after her.

Minutes later the two of them are stepping inside of Blue Base. Wash knocks the dusty fresh snow off of his jacket at the door, which makes Carolina roll her eyes even as she does the same. He shrugs. “We can toss a towel down if you’re that worried.”

“I’m not.” Carolina snots as she slips out of her boots. “It’s just that— ”

“Just what?”

“You did that when you first joined Freelancer too.” Carolina said. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

Wash is a little stunned by it. He stares across at her. He hadn’t even imagine that it was something that Carolina would have ever noticed, especially back in Freelancer when he was still the new kid on the team and she had much more important duties to attend to. If there was anything that should have slid under her radar, it would have been how he got snow off of his clothes and armor when he came inside.

“Oh.” Wash says. His brow furrows for a moment. “I didn’t realize—” He doesn’t know where he’s going.

Carolina begins to head into the kitchen. “You’re fine.” She calls back as she goes to the freezer and begins to rifle around for one of the pre-made breakfast sandwiches that Blue Team seems to keep in nearly infinite stock. She pulls out two and begins unpacking them from their wrappers so that she can cover them and put them in the nearly ancient half-burned microwave for a few minutes.

“Thanks.” Wash says.

“You got me coffee.”

“Still.”

Carolina starts the microwave, and definitely catches him staring at her. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know.” Wash admits. “I just feel… kind of weird.”

“Want to talk about it?” Carolina turns her head away from him to focus on the microwave instead, since there’s always a chance that it’s going to light on fire spontaneously anyways. It’s happened more than once since Wash had joined the Reds and Blues. When her hair sways with the motion, Wash sees the telltale scarring on the back of her neck.

“I don’t know.” He says. “I think it’s just the snow has me in a weird mood.”

“I understand that.” Carolina says. “It makes it feel too quiet. But I’m sure that’ll go away once the guys get into it.”

“Yeah.” Wash sighs. “Something like that.” Somehow, he didn’t feel any better yet.

Carolina pulls the microwave door open a second before the timer can go off and wake up the entire base. She slips each of the sandwiches onto separate plates and offers one to Wash. He takes it and breathes in the scent of egg, sausage, and warm cheese. Carolina begins on her way back to her own room in the base. She pauses and looks at Wash directly before she nods to direct him to follow after her.

He can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face as he begins after her. The two of them step into her room, and Carolina pushes the door closed with a yellow polka dot socked foot. Wash heads to her bed and takes a seat on one side. Carolina slides in next to him, the same way that she had a thousand times before.

They’re alone.

“I was thinking about—” He frowns. There's absolutely no easy way to talk about it. “Sidewinder.”

Carolina’s expression sinks. “Sidewinder?”

“Yeah.” He admits. “I sincerely hope we never end up on that planet again. I saw you running and I just thought of…” Blink. “I know that I didn’t even see it but—”

“Wash?”

“Your hair is so red.”

His voice cracks.

“Wash?”

It’s not a good way to explain the feeling, he realizes too late. And it’s bringing up shit that he really shouldn’t on top of everything else. But he needs to explain it, because if he doesn’t he feels like he’s going to be caught flinching every time he sees Carolina out of the corner of his eye even when it doesn’t make sense to.

He shouldn’t be feeling overcome with dread over a little snowfall and he knows it.

“I almost lost you there.” Wash mumbles, setting his plate down on the side table because he doesn’t have much of an appetite all of a sudden. “To—”

“I know.” She says. “I was there.”

“Still.” Wash says. “I just saw you in the snow and I couldn’t… get it out of my head.”

“And you weren’t there.”

It’s not a surprise that she goes there. “I know—” Wash tells her with a too heavy sigh. “I’ve imagined it too much.” He admits. “Losing you.”

Carolina nods along, frown apparent on her face. “You know that you aren’t alone in that, Wash.” She blinks, those green irises of hers disappearing for a split second. “I’ve almost lost you too. I worry every time you end up with a sore throat or a headache, or waking up from a nightmare.” To his surprise, she leans over and does the same as he did before she slides her hand towards his, so that their fingertips brush together ever so slightly.

And for some reason that he can’t quite figure out, Wash laughs. It's an ugly, bitter thing that tears its way out of his throat. Wash lets himself lean into her, and feels no surprise at all when those yellow polka dot covered feet end up slipped between his calves, probably because its cold and he’s a little warmer. His arms wrap around her back and pull her in close to him.

Her nose ends up wedged into his neck. “You’re a pain in the ass, Wash.” She breathes against his skin. “Always have been.”

“So are you.” Wash retorts as he tucks his nose into her red hair. Too red. Red enough that if there was blood in it he probably wouldn’t even notice. Her hair is soft though, and it smells like some sort of fruit that he doesn’t recognize. It’s comforting, all things considered. “Real pain in the ass.”

“Am I now?” Carolina snorts. “Because I can’t help but feel like I’ve missed the memo on that.”

“Yeah.” Wash jokes. “The biggest.”

“Not as big as you.” Carolina nudges him with an elbow. “Mister grappling hook balls.”

Wash feels his face heat up too much too fast. “You’re the one that chose to aim there!”

“It was the only place where I could have gotten a hold of you!” Carolina retorts. “At least I got you back into the ship in one piece. Which you’re welcome for, by the way.”

“Yeah.” Wash sighs. “I think it’s good that we’re both in one piece. For the most part.”

“More or less.” Carolina mumbles into his neck. “We’re definitely both a bit worse for the wear.”

“Yeah.” Wash said, stilling for a second when he felt the tip of Carolina’s nose brush against the scarring left behind by the bullet that had torn through his neck. “Definitely.”

Her lips brush against it next. Wash almost feels himself stop breathing then. “Lina?” He asks, suddenly too quiet.

“Wash—” She sighs hot breath against his skin. “If anyone ever hurts you again, I will do everything in my power to make sure it will never happen again.”

“Me too.” Wash whispers back to Carolina as her hand presses against his chest, presses him back into the bed. “God, Lina—”

She sits up, stares down at him with those almost unnatural green eyes of hers. He wonders about them sometimes, how she could end up with such an intense, vivid color.

Of course, he knows the answer to that question. It’s something he’d rather not think about.

“Wash.” Carolina breathes. “I mean it.”

“I know.” He mumbles back to her as he makes himself more comfortable. “Is this one of the days where we stay in and do nothing all day because it’s cold out and it’s a good excuse?”

“It’s a day where we try to do that until we don’t have a choice but to get up.”

“Like Caboose wanting cookies.”

“Like Caboose wanting cookies.” Carolina echoes back to him with a little laugh. “I miss North’s cookies. He claimed his secret ingredient was love but we all knew it was just cinnamon— not even good cinnamon..”

“Shit, me too.” Wash snorts. “I hate how much I find myself missing that ship.”

“Me too.” Carolina says, almost sadly. “I even miss the annoying parts.”

“Like?”

“The twins bickering. Constantly.” Carolina says, almost wistfully. “Deciding disciplinary action because York and Niner tried to outdrink each other again and York ended up passed out drunk in the Counselor’s office.”

“I forgot about that.” Wash couldn’t help but laugh. “I even miss Wyoming’s shitty jokes.”

“So shitty. I still never want to hear another knock knock joke again.” Carolina lets out a little snort. She lets out a heavy breath. “I even almost liked Sidewinder before everything happened. Never want to go back now.”

“Neither do I.” Wash says. “We’ve both almost died there. Maine died there.” He pauses. “I mean The Meta died there.”

“Maine died earlier.” She whispers. “In a way.”

“Right.”

Carolina blinks. “We still have food that we need to eat.”

“Yeah.” Wash sits up and turns towards his plate. There isn’t steam raising from the sandwich anymore, which means that it’s either going to be cold and kind of gross, or still warm but not so hot that he’s going to end up burning the roof of his mouth like he does every time he just rushes into it. He pulls the plate into his lap and at his side Carolina does the same. “Food.”

She takes the first bite of her sandwich. “I worked long and hard on making this for you.” Carolina jokes. “Slaved over a hot microwave to feed you.”

“It was three minutes.” Wash jabs her with his elbow playfully. “I spent longer making you coffee.”

“Still.” Carolina nudges his arm. “My point still stands.”

Wash smiles at her and manages to finish off his sandwich. She does the same at his side, and then when the two of them are finally finished, him and Carolina end up stretched out in her bed. She’s warm at his side and against his skin. It’s pleasant enough that he can just sink down into the warmth, and for a little while, he can rest. 


	2. Bitter Cold

When they’d moved there, Carolina hadn’t expected for Iris to have winters that were so dry and bitterly cold.

The bases are well constructed and do a lot to keep out the cold, but there's a chill that always seems to slip in through the cracks. Most of the time they have their armor to keep them warm. Their armor keeps regulated temperatures and is insulated fairly well so the cold doesn’t actually reach any of them.

The problem comes in the fact that Carolina, in addition to the Reds and Blues can’t really live in their armor. They have to get out of it once in a while, to sleep and to shower and relax. When she’s out of armor, the cold gets so bad that it seems to work its way down into her bones.

And Carolina hates the cold. She hates how it reminds her of the cliffs of Sidewinder, or of the time she broke her arm sledding with her mother when she went down a too ambitious slope, or the time that she and Wash were trapped in a freezer for too long by someone that wanted nothing more than for the two of them to suffer.

It’s been a while since that incident. They’ve had time to heal, they’re doing well on Iris because at the end of the day it is their home. She can look at Wash now. She can watch him move and run in his armor, she can watch him laugh and smile and joke with the Reds and Blues. At night she can crawl in with him and he’s alive and breathing and warm. A survivor, through and through.

Somehow one of the things that Carolina can always rely on is that Wash will always be there at the end of the day. He’ll be living, he’ll be thriving. He’ll be there. Every night when she goes to bed and every morning when she gets up in the morning. The galaxy’s greatest cockroach.

The colder weather means that there are more times where she and Wash end up in bed together. It’s not about sex, not usually. Of course there are nights where it’s in play, but most nights they’re simply both looking for a chance to stave off the bitter cold. Being together can help with that, and the company is nice in itself.

But sometimes on those nights, Carolina wakes and she understands what Wash means when he says things like her hair is so red when he’s in some sort of panic.

It’s a horrible feeling, waking and feeling frozen or damp, even though it’s just from her own sweat. It makes her feel like she's underwater again, either drowning after being flung off of a cliff because water is seeping in through her undersuit, or frozen in place in an underwater base where the water seems to drip in from the seams in the metal even though it should be completely airtight so it always feels damp.

She sits upright since she figures sleeping is a lost cause, and just watches Wash as he sleeps. His breathing stays slow and steady, even as ever. Calm. Relaxed. Unaware of what is going on in her head, of what is going on just half a bed away from him.

The pale moonlight that shines from outside streams in from the window and falls on Wash’s face. It brings out the grey in his hair (he’s supposed to be younger than her, she knows), but he feels older in a way,) and makes his scarring seem to light up in ways that it doesn’t in the sunlight. Bright silver.

She reaches out and gently brushes his hair away from his face.

Her Wash. So handsome. His skin is a map of all of his pains and struggles.

Some of which she should have done more to help protect him against. Some of those scars are simple nicks and scrapes that had been a little deeper than they should have been. Injuries picked up over the course of a lifetime of military service. Injuries earned without any serious story behind them. Some have their serious stories— the burn on his head where Locus’ bolt had hit him on Chorus, places where bone had broken through his skin, places where he’s been shot or hit with shrapnel.

But then there's the scar on his neck.

For too long she's had nightmares about that scar. About the bullet tearing its way through his undersuit, and then tissue and blood after that before coming out the other side. She still remembers the blood, and the panic that she'd felt as Wash had been loaded onto Locus’ ship to be spirited off to Chorus on the off chance that he would stay alive. When he’d been taken away from the rest of them by a former enemy with no clear means of future contact between them.

She’d been too close to losing him. If he had died, she wouldn’t have even known when it happened. It would have been news delivered to her later, when the aid from Chorus arrived.

Wash lets out a tiny snort in his sleep. Carolina sighs and lowers herself down into the space at Wash’s side, where she might be able to comfort herself enough that resting again might actually be possible. He’s comfortable, and Carolina knows deep down that’s the thing that should matter the most to her. After all, that’s what she wants, isn’t it? For him to be alive and happy? To be able to sleep through the nights and thrive through the days?

His skin is warm against her. It almost radiates into her enough that she can almost relax, but not quite, and its not quite enough. To try and satiate herself in that way that she so desperately needs, she gently takes Wash’s hand in hers. He doesn’t stir.

Carolina watches his face as he sleeps, and just how peaceful and calm he seems to be.

If the world ends, Carolina thinks to herself, She would fight for him. She’d go through walls and armies if it meant that she could keep him alive. Losing Wash would be world-ending for her. It would crush the Reds and Blues, but Wash is the only one that she has left from before them.

They might not want to think of it in that way, but it’s different. Nothing will change that it’s different. Nothing ever could.

Carolina closes her eyes and draws herself in close to Wash so that she can breathe.

It’s that which makes him wake. He gives this tiny jerk when he comes to, picks his head up and looks around the room with bleary eyes in an attempt to figure out what it is that’s changed. “Carolina?” He asks, his voice quiet but slurred from sleep.

“Hey.” Carolina whispers back to him, jostling herself to ensure that she can look straight into his eyes while they talk. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Wash blinks, bleary eyed. “What time is it?”

Carolina sighs, and glances over at the old alarm clock on the bedside table. “I don’t think you’d want to know that.” She whispers back to Wash. “It’s not really great.”

“Lina—”

“Three.”

“Shit.” Wash mumbles. He picks up one hand so that he can rub at his eyes with his palm. “Why are you up?”

Carolina shrugs. “Nightmare.” She whispers. “I was trying to go back to bed.”

Wash blinks. “Want to talk about it?”

The moonlight hits the scar again. Carolina’s stomach twists, because even though she wants to tell Wash that there’s nothing to talk about, it’s a lie. A boldfaced horrible lie, one which she wants to be able to tell the truth about but can’t because she’s almost seem him die so many times.

It’s that thought which makes her close her eyes, squeeze them shut to try and banish that sickened feeling that’s taken root down in her stomach.

Wash sits up. “Lina?” He asks again. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just so scared.” Carolina whispers as she sits back up again. She can feel her face getting hot in that unpleasant way that it does when she feels like she’s about to cry. “Do you realize how many times I’ve almost lost you?”

“Yeah.” Wash blinks. “I could give you a list if you think that would make you feel better.” His expression twitches down into a frown. Wash rubs at his neck absentmindedly. A scar on his head from where one of Locus’ bullets hit him on Chorus lights up under the pale light of the moon. “If you wanted. ”

“I don’t.” Carolina tells him. “I remember them. All too well.”

“Yeah, well.” Wash frowns. “Do you think that maybe we… hold onto things too much?”

“Wash?”

“I mean—-” He blinks. “Just all of those things that we’ve been through. And I don’t mean just us, I mean—” Wash hesitates. “This shit keeps following us, and I’m so sick of it. It isn’t fun, and it’s never any good. It just makes things hard to deal with. Drags things back up just when we think we're done with them.“

“Right.” Carolina breathes. “I don’t know how I could ever forget any of it though.” And against all of her better nature, Carolina leans in and brushes his hair aside from the scar. “It’s all so—”

Wash catches her hand before she can do any more. “It’s everywhere you look, right?”

“Yeah.” Carolina says. “How am I supposed to forget, when every day I look at you and see those scars. When I know that we both have nightmares about the same things?” And it’s then that she finally breaks. Her grip on Wash’s hand tightens and she uses him to pull herself into him. “And why is it that I don’t want it any other way?”

Wash wraps his arm around her, tugs her in close. “I get it.” He tells her. “That all of this has been… hard. But we’ve also survived all of it. The galaxy’s greatest cockroaches.”

Carolina nods against his shoulder. “I just don’t want to lose you Wash. Not because of some dumb mistake one of us makes when we’re out in the field, or because of some weirdo with a grudge that decided destroying us is worth more than anything else.”

“I don’t want to lose you either.” Wash whispers back to her. She feels his thumb brush over the scar tissue at the back of her neck from when the Meta had torn Eta and Iota from her head.

He stares out the window for a moment, then pats her leg. “Come on.” He tells her. “Maybe we should try going for a walk and see whether or not that makes it any easier.”

Carolina hesitates, glances out the window herself. The ground is still coated with snow, and probably still frozen and hard. Whether or not there’s ice Carolina can’t be sure of because it’s going to be a difficult time anyways. Maybe all that she’s going to need to do is pull on just a jacket, but even then she can’t be so sure because that depends on how long the two of them end up being out there.

She lets out a bitter laugh. “You want to go for a walk?” She looks up at Wash. “In that?”

“If it’s not coming down, I don’t mind.” He walks to the dresser on the far side of the room and pulls it open in the practiced way that really speaks to how many nights he’s spent there. Carolina figures that sooner or later the arrangement is going to become at least a degree more permanent eventually. Eventually it won’t just be Wash storing an extra supply of clothes in her room so that he can have something to wear before he goes to get cleaned up after a night together. And she wouldn’t be doing the same in his room.

He pulls out a pair of socks, sweat pants, and a sweater which he tugs on immediately. He looks over at Carolina. Daring her to get up and do the same, and even though there's a part of her that really doesn’t want to get up and get dressed, she goes. She meets him at the dresser and even chooses a warmer set of clothes for herself.

Minutes later, the two of them are dressed in civvies and on their way out of the base.

The air is silent and still. It's cold enough that it’s hard to be comfortable, but that at least partially isn’t what matters. It’s more important that the two of them are alone.

Wash seems at ease in the cold air, surprisingly. It had been days before when he’d come to her and had been worried because of the color of her hair.

The two of them walk away from the clearing with the two bases, and they head down towards the river because that's about the only other place where they’re going to be guaranteed to have a place to sit that won’t also be covered in snow. They built a little eating area of sorts there during the summer in their downtime. A wooden roof with picnic tables underneath.

Neither of them say much until they're finally there, sitting down and getting comfortable. Or rather, as comfortable as they can get when it’s cold out and there’s wind nipping at their cheeks.

Wash speaks up first. “What did you dream of?” He asks. “Specifically.”

“The Blues and Reds.” Carolina whispers back to him, even though she knows perfectly well that she definitely doesn’t need to do so. “I think. I woke up and I was just so cold. All I could think of was being locked up like that.” She shrugs. “And then I couldn’t help but—”

Wash nods. His hand moves up to his neck to cover the scarring, almost subconsciously.

“It was the scariest one.” Carolina says. “For me. Just because that time it felt so much more real, and there was never any time to think about it between it happening and Locus-”

“Taking me.” Wash finishes for her. “I understand that.”

She blinks. “And when you got scared the other day—” She says. “It was because you thought of—”

“Sidewinder.”

“Yeah.”

Carolina stares down at the water, and it’s then that it hits her. Something that she'd learned back in basic when she was going through her survival training lessons. Back then she'd never thought that she would never have to actually use it. It had never come up in her experiences at any point.

But there was something.

Water that flows never freezes entirely. Water that flows is more likely to be safe to drink.

Water that flows never freezes.

She leans in close to Wash, rests her head on his shoulder and makes herself comfortable. “Maybe our problem is that we keep on making mistakes.” She says. “About how we decide to stay stuck on this shit that's so far behind us, but—”

“It always comes back up, right?” Wash says. “Either because someone comes out of the woodwork and finds us, or because the guys get involved in some adventure, or just because we happen to end up in places where we used to be.”

“Yeah.” Carolina says. Hesitates. “Maybe what we need is to stop staying in one place, at least for a little while. Maybe that could make things easier.”

Wash shrugs. “I think that there’s a difference.”

“A difference?”

“A difference between dwelling on the past, and it always creeping up on us. I don’t think that we dwell, but maybe in the last couple of days we have. And it hasn’t been good for either of us.”

“So what do you suggest we do, Wash?” Carolina asks. “Because I don’t know that I want to just pick up everything we have and go on another adventure.”

Wash blinks. Shrugs. “I don’t know.” He tells her, and Carolina believes fully that it’s the honest truth. “Just keep living, I guess?”

“Try not to get stuck in one spot then.” Carolina whispers. “I think that we can try that.”

Wash nods, stares across the water. “By the way—” He starts. “When I said that your hair is so red the other day, I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. I like your hair. I always have.”

“The color is a little intense.” Carolina admits. “But I like it that way.”

“Just don’t get blood in it.” Wash says, a soft smile beginning to cross his face. “I’d like to be able to see it if you get hurt.”

“I won’t get blood in my hair if you don’t nearly get yourself killed anytime we go anywhere. ”

“I don’t do that!”

Carolina blinks, and for once she can’t help the smile that’s beginning to stretch across her face. “Wash, when we go to Chorus, I’m constantly worried that you’re going to get yourself hit by a car because you decided that the best way to dress was as a highway.”

“I didn’t choose my armor colors!”

“But you stuck with them!” Carolina replies. “That’s at least twice as bad!”

“At least I don’t wear the same colors as someone else on the team!”

“I was wearing those colors before Tucker was even in the military.” Carolina retorts. “And I’m not changing on account of him. I had them first.”

“Yeah, well.” Wash snorts, and he rests his cheek against the top of her head. “I’ll try and be better at not dying. And you should be too.”

“Okay.” Carolina says with a tiny smirk. “We’ll both try to be better about not dying. Seems like a good habit to get into.”

Wash nods, and the movement is sure to be messing up her hair but Carolina doesn’t even care because at least she’s able to spend her time so close to Wash. At least she can lean on him and use it as a chance to breathe.

She closes her eyes. “You’re my favorite person, Wash.” Carolina whispers it, even though she could probably shout it out to all of Iris and get away without a single person hearing it. “And I seriously hope that never changes.”

“I don’t know about favorite.” Wash jokes, even as he presses a kiss to the top of her head. “But you are pretty great. And I am glad that you decided to stay with us. Even if the guys can be a little bit—”

“Much?”

“Much.”

Carolina nudges her way in, just a little closer. “I don’t think it’s as bad as it felt originally.”

“Yeah.” Wash smiles. “That’s the nice thing isn’t it?”

“Hm?”

“It always gets a little easier to use our downtime.” He says.

“Yeah.” Carolina whispers back. “It always does.”

“Wouldn't have it any other way.”

Carolina thinks back, to all of those times before. To all of the little bases, the little conflicts they’d ended up in. Civil wars and all. Living on Iris was easily the hardest thing that she’d ever done and yet.

It wasn’t so bad.

“Yeah.” Carolina replies. “I definitely wouldn’t have it any other way.”

They ended up sitting there until morning, until the sun rose over the horizon and lit up the world and bathed it in shades of red and blue, warming their little moon as it rose higher and higher into the sky.

The sunlight felt nice on her skin, comforting as the yellow stripe on Wash’s helmet was for her to see at her back in battle.

**Author's Note:**

> I am:
> 
> arynasea on tumblr  
> mantisbelle on pillowfort.io  
> mantisbelle on dreamwidth. 
> 
> Sometimes I post things in these places.


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